8/6/2019 Ten Best and Worst City Policies of 2010

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Ten Best and Worst City Policies of 2010By Amy Traub and John Petro

The brutal economy of 2010 brought tough times to most American cities. Yet despite risingunemployment and falling tax revenue, some municipalities found progressive ways to moveforward. From Austin’s determination to invest in sustainable transportation to Cleveland’sefforts to hold banks accountable for the devastation they wrought, DMI honors these effortsamong the best of city policy. At the same time, we call out cities whose ideas and practicesmoved us further from justice, democracy, and equity. From Chicago’s failed effort to wringdecent wages from Wal-Mart to nasty anti-immigrant legislation in Fremont, Nebraska, theyear’s worst policies serve as a cautionary tale for urban policymakers in 2011.

THE BEST CITY POLICIES OF 2010

Denver Sparks Parental Involvement En Espanol The experts agree: parental involvement has strong positive effects on students’ achievement inschool. When parents are engaged with their child’s education, attendance improves, grades andtest scores go up, and graduation rates rise. But how can school districts involve parents whodon’t speak English? In Denver, where three in five students are Latino and many have parentswith poor English skills, the school system has taken to the radio waves. Through an hour-longweekly program called “Educa” (educate) the Denver Public Schools connect with Spanish-speaking parents about school policies, events, and issues in public education. Parents can also

call in with questions about their children’s school and the education system. The first-of-its-kindprogram broadcasts on three popular Spanish-language radio stations and has more than doubledits audience — to 54,200 unique listeners — over just a few months. For engaging immigrantparents in a format that speaks to them, the Denver schools’ multicultural outreach efforts comein loud in clear on our list of the best policies of 2010.

Good Jobs Prevail in Pittsburgh Eager for new development and jobs, cities commonly give developers multi-million dollar taxbreaks to sweeten the pot and to get shovels in the ground. But when subsidies are given toprojects that create low-wage jobs that keep families in poverty, taxpayers get the short end of the stick. Workers making poverty-level wages at publicly subsidized developments must still

rely on public assistance like food stamps, Medicaid, or rental assistance. The result is economicdependence more than economic development. To make sure that taxpayer investments wouldpay off for city residents, Pittsburgh passed a common-sense piece of legislation: if a developerwanted tax breaks for a new development, workers in the new taxpayer-subsidized hotels,supermarkets, or office buildings must be paid the industry-standard prevailing wage. Inan affirmation of the law’s successful implementation in Pittsburgh, the surrounding AlleghenyCounty quickly adopted a similar law. For ensuring that public tax dollars create good jobs withdecent wages, Pittsburgh’s prevailing wage law earns a spot on our list of 2010’s best policies.

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Less Lock-up in New York Treating young offenders like hardened criminals makes no sense — sending a kid in trouble to a juvenile prison greatly increases that young person’s chance of becoming an adult offender.Detaining kids also costs more money than community-based programs, which have a muchbetter track record of preventing future criminality. Luckily, New York City is moving to

eliminate unnecessary detention for youthful offenders, many of whom would otherwise belocked up while simply awaiting trial. The city is putting more kids into effective community-based alternatives to detention and reserving secure detention for only the most violentyouthful offenders. New assessment tools have been developed to determine which youth shouldbe sent to secure detention and which would be better served in the community. The bottom lineis that secure detention for youth is now seen as the option of last resort, rather than the defaultoption. For doing what’s best for youth, the community, and the taxpayer, New York City’s juvenile justice reforms are among this year’s best public policies.

My Way or the Highway in Austin n Austin, TX, whose frustrating traffic congestion provided the backdrop for the movie “Office

Space,” drivers waste an average of one and a half days stuck in traffic every year. Somebusiness leaders pushed for a conventional response to congestion: wider roads and morehighways. But the city opted to go down a different path. Recognizing that they could neverbuild enough highways to eliminate traffic congestion, lawmakers instead put a $90 millionbond issue on the ballot to improve Austin’s existing streets and make them morehospitable to pedestrians and bicycles. According to blogger Austin Contrarian, “Most of Austin’s roads outside of the central core were laid when the city was more rural than urban. nosidewalks, no bicycle lanes, no sewers, no street trees. But once rural roads now cut throughmajor population centers.” Austin voters approved the bonds on November 2nd. For affirmingthat transportation investments must include more than just new highway miles, Austin’s bondwalks straight onto our list of the best policies of 2010.

Cleveland Sues the Banks It’s the story of the decade: Ameriquest, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and other banks raked inrecord profits speculating on mortgages, pushing more and riskier home loans onto borrowerswho clearly never had the means to pay them back. Then the house of cards collapsed.Foreclosure rates soared and cities were left to pick up the pieces. Arson, property deterioration,and crime in neighborhoods devastated by foreclosure imposed steep costs on municipalities justas the recession decimated their tax base. So some cities decided to fight back. The 2010documentary “Cleveland vs. Wall Street” tells the story of one such fight, as the city of Cleveland sued more than twenty major banks for setting off a chain of events withnegative consequences “entirely foreseeable by Wall Street.” When a federal appeals court

rejected the case earlier this year, Cleveland announced it would continue its fight to theSupreme Court. For striving to hold Wall Street accountable for the devastation it wreaked in itsneighborhoods, Cleveland’s suit wins a place on our best policy of 2010 list.

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THE WORST CITY POLICIES OF 2010 

Corruption Takes a Toll in Bell Progressives know government can be a powerful force for good in people’s lives. So it’sparticularly devastating when the people charged with upholding the public trust — local

officials with the potential to improve the lives of their constituents — instead betray the public.The year’s most notorious case of municipal corruption occurred in the town of Bell, California,a working-class community outside of Los Angeles. The city’s highest ranking officialssecretly paid themselves exorbitant salaries and benefits, misappropriated city funds, andgave themselves illicit low-interest loans, according to criminal allegations and reports by the Los Angeles Times. To add insult to injury, the Bell case provided the Right with a pretext toattack the wages and benefits of rank-and-file public workers, suggesting that teachers andsanitation workers (who wouldn’t see Bell-style compensation if they worked for a century) weresimilarly compromised. For destroying public trust and providing yet another revolting exampleof people at the top abusing their power, the corrupt practices of Bell officials rings out as one of the worst policies of 2010.

Blood from a Stone in New York It might be enough make Ebenezer Scrooge squirm. In New York City the homeless populationhas grown to 36,600, up from 33,600 five years ago. At the same time the, city has cut servicesfor the homeless and plans to further reduce funding for the Department of Homeless Services by$19 million over the next 18 months. But when the city announced its plan to charge workinghomeless families rent for sleeping in city shelters the public outcry was instantaneous. Cityofficials insisted the program was an effort to instill greater responsibility in homeless families.But as one homeless advocate pointed out, “They are taking money… that could otherwise beused to help themselves get out of the shelter system. We’re dealing with the poorest people, thepeople who are the most in need, and we’re asking them to pay for a shelter of last resort.” Under

intense pressure, the city has since changed its stance. Working homeless families are nowencouraged to put part of their income into savings. But for attempting to place an even moreonerous burden on the poorest of the working poor, New York City’s plan to charge homelessfamilies rent finds a home among the worst policies of 2010.

Who Turned Out the Lights in Colorado Springs? Smacked by the recession, many cities faced revenue shortfalls and tough budget choices in2010. But few towns resorted the type of draconian service cutbacks seen in ColoradoSprings, where residents voted against a property tax increase and the town instead opted to turnoff streetlights (although residents who can afford to could choose to reactive their lights); shrink the police department any rely on private taxicabs to help with law enforcement; and leave

neighborhood parks to wither (people with time and resources can volunteer to maintain theirown local green spaces). “We did have a transit system,” the Vice-Mayor told NPR. “That’sgone almost completely now.” Many commentators denounced Colorado Springs as an objectlesson in the consequences of anti-tax extremism, but the city’s small-government stance hidesan inconvenient truth: a major source of Colorado Springs’ economic strength is its reliance onthe military and other state and federal public employment to anchor the local labor market. Forgutting public services in accordance with a narrow, me-first ideology, Colorado Springs’ cuts join our list of the worst policies of 2010.

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Anti-Immigrant Fever in Fremont In January, Kris Kobach will become Kansas’ new Secretary of State, but his destructiveinfluence already extends far beyond the borders of the Sunflower State. For the last severalyears, Kobach has made a cottage industry of advancing harsh city and state anti-immigrantstatutes characterized by high municipal costs, significant damage to the local economy, and

tremendous potential for discrimination against anyone who “looks” like they might be anunauthorized immigrant. This year, a Kobach-written ordinance was enacted in the town of Fremont, Nebraska, which banned hiring or renting to unauthorized immigrants. Althoughimplementation has been blocked by a lawsuit, the ordinance’s divisive impact is already beingfelt. Many of the city’s long-time officials are resigning or retiring, noting that the immigrationfight “wears you down.” Taxpayers also feel the bite: the town raised property taxes inanticipation of an expensive legal battle. For exemplifying what one local attorney called “thepower of fear” as it faced an increase in (predominantly legal) Latino residents, Fremont’s anti-immigrant ordinance is one of the worst of 2010.

Wal-Mart’s Broken Promises in Chicago 

It’s no secret that mega-retailer Wal-Mart desperately wants to get a foothold in urban markets.Similarly well-known is Wal-Mart’s dismal record on workers’ rights and its devastating impacton small businesses. New Wal-Mart stores have been shown to destroy nearly as many jobs asthey create, push other stores out of business, and to drive down wages for workers throughoutthe entire community. In Chicago, where the retail chain has ambitions to open “several dozen”stores, Wal-Mart’s strategy included buying off community leaders with charitable donations andsplitting union solidarity by pitting construction unions versus retail unions. But mostshamefully, Wal-Mart reneged on an agreement it had made with the unions and cityleaders that helped secure City Council approval of its second Chicago store. City Aldermenand labor leaders thought they had an unwritten agreement with Wal-Mart to pay workers 50cents above minimum wage and to give workers a minimum 40 cent raise after the first year.

They thought wrong. The same day that the store was approved, Wal-Mart announced that therewas, in fact, no wage deal. To Wal-Mart, for breaking a promise, and to the political leaders whofailed to get a binding deal, the approval of Wal-Mart in Chicago is one of this year’s worst citypolicies.